The Hours Conversion

Ahh…a challenge. How to turn The Hours, a book that has little action and relies on thought streams to convey its message, into a movie?

The audience for such a film will primarily be those who have read the book. It cannot be advertised as the action thriller of the year, it cannot be billed as a major romance, and it certainly is not a comedy. So any advertisement campaign is largely going to have to focus on those who have already read the work, or those who enjoy more highbrow films – film art festivals and the like.

Now I realize that this may seem like sacrilege to bring this name into a discussion of a book like The Hours, but consider the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I know, I know – hardly high art. What is important about it, however, is that at its core, it faced many of the same difficulties faced by The Hours. It has a plot in which almost nothing happens, and all the most important events occur inside the character’s minds. If we look at how it handled those problems, we can turn those solutions to our own use.

The camera is going to play an integral role in this movie. Unlike an action flick, the camera cannot simply follow the action – tagging behind the helicopter, closing up for the punches, etcetera. That would lend an unrealistic air to the movie as well – it would make it seem more like a production than a simple story. Napoleon Dynamite overcame that problem by using a “flat” camera style – the camera remains stationary, and any change in camera angle is accomplished with a cut. The producers might not have intended such an effect – they might simply have not been able to afford any higher quality camera work – but it is perfect for our purposes. It will give the film a realistic aura; it will ensure that the viewer focuses not on the physical events but on the mental and emotional ones; it will force the audience to think, rather than to mindlessly follow the camera; and it gives us a powerful tool to emphasize what action there is by moving the camera only when we wish to emphasize an action. Richard’s suicide, for example, could have the camera move to watch him descend – though now that I consider it, a better option might be a flat shot of Richard falling, then a cut to Clarissa as she gasps in horror, followed by the camera chasing her down the stairs. Some jerky camera work would add further to the urgency and panic of this scene.

Sets and scenery are going to be essential in this movie. Their most important role will be to simply differentiate between the various time periods in this novel, allowing the audience to easily determine where in the plot they are. Napoleon Dynamite firmly established a setting and time period by the color scheme it used – the dingy, oddly contrasting colors differentiate it from a city’s bright chaos or the Egyptian Empire’s golden sand. While to a point this can be done simply by design – an old phonograph for Woolf, a 1940’s radio cabinet for Brown, and a stereo system for Clarissa, for example – that won’t be sufficient, and would look ridiculous if an artifact of the times was highlighted in every opening shot. So I propose a color scheme for each period – Mrs. Woolf will be in dark colors mostly, and the camera will lower the saturation on the film to make it appear faded – not black and white, simply with a hint of grey. Mrs. Brown can be done in bright, plain colors, and have the faux, Technicolor look of an old TV show – think the first colorized episode of the Andy Griffith show. Clarissa’s time will be done in normal everyday colors – dingy when we cut from Mrs. Brown, and bright when we cut from Mrs. Woolf.

The script is going to be the biggest challenge. Most of the thoughts in the novel are too long for any narrator save an auctioneer to read in the given amount of screen time. A movie that pauses for nine minutes as a main character walks down the street for a narrative on her friends, nickname, and how she personally enjoys beauty simply is not feasible. Most of the thoughts in the novel will have to edited and translated to visual or verbal cues that impart the same information – for instance, instead of a narrator telling us Mrs. Brown did not want get up, the actress can sigh, yawn, perform a sleepy stretch, look guiltily at the clock – any number of things. Since it would be all too easy to lose important parts of the novel while converting it, I would have Mr. Cunningham himself do this task, if that was feasible.

While logically I should move on to select actors and actresses, I must confess that I neither watch movies often (I have seen roughly three this year, and two of those were seen since I came to Purdue) nor do I follow celebrities. I have no earthly idea what actors to cast for what roles. I know that make-up artists can disguise anyone as anyone, so I would focus on finding those with acting ability, not matching their description in the book. An interesting idea might to try using actor from plays instead of movie actors – they’d be more accustomed to conveying nuances through expression and action.

I predict that my version of The Hours would be a mixed success – it would not be a box office hit, but it would, thanks to its source, be a work of high art if it was done properly. It would the sort of movie that critics and a small cadre of people love. I cannot wait to see the real one and see just how it compares to my ideas.